Marie Ferrarella - The Coltons - Nick, Clay & Jericho

Emmie surprised both her mother and Nick with her next words. “Can I stay with Nick, Mama?”

“That’s Mr. Sheffield, honey,” Georgie corrected. Emmie called the cowboys on the circuit by their first names, but that was different. Those were men who doted on her. This was an agent of the government. “And I’m sure he’s got a whole bunch of things he wants to do that don’t include babysitting a little girl.”

Her request completely mystified Nick. “Why would you want to stay with me?”

“’Cause I’ve got questions to ask you,” Emmie told him solemnly.

Had Emmie been older, he would have suspected a setup, with Georgie putting words into the child’s mouth. But Emmie looked too young to be a shill, even for her mother. “Questions?”

Emmie nodded, her red curls bouncing like thin springs about her head. “Like how do those go on?” Before he could ask what she was referring to, Emmie pointed a small index finger at the handcuffs hanging off his belt. Usually hidden by his jacket, the garment had gotten stuck on them, exposing just enough steel to capture Emmie’s attention.

Georgie took hold of Emmie’s hand and began to lead her to the front door. “Careful what you wish for, honey. He just might show you,” she murmured under her breath, but loud enough for both Emmie and Nick to hear.

It suddenly occurred to him that there was an advantage to having the little girl remain. Moving quickly, he shifted himself in front of mother and daughter before they could reach the front door. “She can stay.”

Georgie looked up at him and read between the lines. The man was pretty transparent. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back. You don’t need a hostage,” she told him deliberately.

She took a step to get around him. He took one to keep in front of her. “If Emmie stays here, I’ll be sure of it.”

Did he think she was born yesterday? Or did he just think she was that stupid? “I’m not leaving my four-year-old daughter alone with a man I don’t know.”

“Five, Mama, I’m almost five,” Emmie reminded her, holding up five splayed fingers.

Nick ignored the little girl. “Fair enough,” he allowed. He’d set about as many wheels in motion as he could right now. This could come under the heading of surveillance work. “I guess we’re going grocery shopping then.”

The only one who seemed happy about the arrangement was Emmie, who suddenly threaded her tiny fingers through Nick’s while still holding on to her mother’s hand. Positioned between them, she gleefully proclaimed, “Just like a real family.”

It took everything Nick had not to yank his hand away.

The ache the words created within Georgie’s chest was immeasurable.

I can’t give you that now, Emmie. But maybe someday , she promised. Maybe someday .

“Careful, honey, or you’re going to give Mr. Sheffield a heart attack,” she said flippantly. “He’d probably got a wife and kids at home.”

Never one to hold back, Emmie took her question to the source. “Do you?” Emmie pressed, twisting around to get a better look at Nick’s face as he dropped back a step.

Reaching the truck, Georgie picked up her daughter and slipped her into the car seat, securing the belts. All the while Emmie craned her neck, watching Nick and waiting for an answer.

“No,” he answered in a monotone. “I don’t.” Getting into the cab of the truck, he waited for Georgie to climb in on her side and give him the keys. There was no way he was allowing the woman to drive. There’d be no telling where they would wind up if he did.

The shopping expedition into town took a little less than two hours, start to finish.

At the checkout counter, after everything had been tallied, Georgie reached for one of her credit cards, then remembered that she’d canceled them all. That left her dependent on cash until the companies issued her new cards and sent them.

Murmuring an apology, Georgie dug into her wallet for cash. Nick elbowed her out of the way and handed the checker a hundred dollar bill.

“That should cover it,” he said.

The young woman behind the counter looked barely out of high school. She regarded the bill with suspicion as she held it up to the light, angling it as if she expected to see the word “counterfeit’ written across the back.

So much for trust, Nick thought, mildly amused at another stereotype biting the dust. “It’s real,” he assured her.

The young blonde flushed. “We don’t see many of these,” she responded, handing him change with what could only be described as an inviting smile.

“You didn’t have to pay for it,” Georgie protested, pushing the cart out of the store.

“You don’t have to cook for me,” he countered, keeping step. Emmie had wound her fingers around his left hand again, all but skipping alongside him and her mother.

You’d think Emmie would have better judgment than that, Georgie thought. She was about to make a cryptic comment about cooking for him, then sighed. She had to think of Emmie and set a good example. So she nodded and said, “Fair enough, I guess.”

He surprised her by loading the grocery bags into the truck, then picking up Emmie and depositing her into her car seat. Allowing him to buckle in Emmie, she still checked to see that the belts were secure.

“Would you like to redo them?” he asked.

“Just making sure she’s secure. I don’t expect you’ve had much experience with kids’ car seats.”

“A seat belt’s a seat belt,” he responded. “You want to drive?” he asked, holding out the keys.

She was about to snatch them away. The keys and the truck that went with them represented her independence. But then she shrugged. She didn’t want to do what he expected her to do.

“You can drive,” she told him, climbing into the passenger seat.

She missed the smile that curved the corners of his mouth just before he got in.

After he’d helped Georgie and Emmie bring in the grocery bags, it dawned on him. Power had been restored to the house, just as Georgie had foretold last night. That meant that he could get back to working on her computer in an effort to see if he had missed something the first time around, before the power from the portable generator had given out.

“I’m going to get back to working on your computer,” he told her as he began to leave the kitchen. “Whoever stole your identity might have been using it to do their ‘shopping’ with your credit cards.”

“What do you hope to find?” she asked. She couldn’t begin to fathom using the machine as a tracking device, but then, she’d be the first to admit that she was naive in the ways of computers.

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted.

“Well, that’s not very encouraging.”

“Most clues turn up by accident,” he told her, leaving the room.

“Definitely not encouraging,” she murmured under her breath. Pushing everything else out of her mind, she turned her attention to making lunch. Specifically, to making burritos. Mexican food always made her feel better and she really needed something to make her feel better.

Left to her own devices, Emmie decided that now would be as good a time as any for “Mr. Sheffield” to answer those questions buzzing in her head. Slipping out of the kitchen, she came bounding into her mother’s bedroom.

“Hi,” she declared cheerfully. Not standing on ceremony, or hanging back, she planted herself beside him at the card table.

Nick looked up. Lost in thought for a moment, he’d forgotten about the little girl.

“Hi,” he murmured and, inadvertently, opened the door for her. The questions came, fast and furious, as to how his handcuffs worked. Why did he need them? Did he see many bad people? What did he do when he saw them? And on and on. There seemed to be no end in sight, her fertile mind coming up with question after question.